06/07/2026
Rest in Peace, Monsignor Peter Wilkinson, priest of the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter.
Born in Victoria, British Columbia, on April 13, 1940, Peter R. Wilkinson was baptized in the Anglican Church of Canada. He felt the call to ecclesial service at a young age and, after university studies in British Columbia, left Canada for theological studies in England. Peter enrolled in seminary at the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield, West Yorkshire. Entering the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield, he was ordained to the priesthood for the Anglican Church of Canada in 1965 at Canterbury Cathedral in England. Returning to Canada in 1970, Father Peter served as hospital chaplain and curate at Christ Church Cathedral in Victoria. In 1977, after the Anglican Church of Canada attempted to ordain women to the priesthood, Father Peter joined the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada, part of the Traditional Anglican Communion. He became pastor of the ACCC’s first parish and ministered there for 14 years. In 1999, he was elected suffragan Bishop of the ACCC for Western Canada, and in 2005 succeeded Bishop Robert Mercer to become Bishop Ordinary and later would oversee the ACCC as Metropolitan Bishop.
Throughout his life and ministry, Father Peter embraced an ascetical life of prayer, intellectual study, and ministry. His theological formation nurtured a persistent desire for the fullness of Catholic communion for which he worked throughout his priesthood. Steeped in the theological works of Newman and the other proponents of the Oxford Movement, he undertook an exhaustive study of the writings of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and even became a regular correspondent with the Cardinal. In the years just prior to the publication of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, Father Peter was among the bishops of the TAC who petitioned Rome for corporate unity with the Catholic Church. The establishment of the Ordinariate was very much an answer to prayer and a fruit of Father Peter’s faithful ministry. He was among the first to enter full communion and was ordained a Catholic priest in 2012.
In the early days of the Ordinariate, Father Peter took an active role in the formation of clergy and the regulation of Ordinariate liturgical life. He served for three years as a consultant to the Holy See’s Anglicanae traditiones Commission tasked with elaborating the liturgical texts for the Ordinariate. He was a prolific worker, and produced hundreds of texts and commentaries that greatly assisted the work of the Commission. All the while, he continued a robust priestly life of pastoral availability, both in the Ordinariate and in the Diocese of Victoria. In 2013, Pope Benedict XVI made Father Peter a Prelate of Honor, conferring upon him the title Monsignor. In 2016, he received the welcome news that the Ordinariate would be led by its first bishop, and Monsignor Peter traveled to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston to serve as priest-chaplain to Bishop Steven Lopes for the latter’s ordination as Ordinariate Bishop.
Monsignor Peter Wilkinson entered eternal life on June 6 after a long illness that dulled his mental acuity, but never his faith or the warmth of his personality.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord. And may the Perpetual Light shine upon him.
